The Home To Do List – Level One

Side note – when we first moved into this house, in March of 2011, we (I) were planning our wedding. Everything we wanted to do got pushed back until after the wedding.

We wanted to get all of the painting done before we moved in, but it just didn’t work out that way. We were too excited. This is our FIRST home. So we changed the door locks and the toilet seats and moved on in! We didn’t even have furniture. For the longest time we had our twin beds pushed together in the master bedroom. You gotta do what you gotta do! Every piece of furniture that IS in the following pictures are pieces that my in-laws gave to us to hold us over, and we’re very grateful. Thank you! Some rooms are still pretty empty though.

I didn’t want to rush into buying a bunch of furniture just to fill the space. And to prove my point, it’s been over a year and we haven’t bought any new furniture. Whether we buy new furniture or re-purpose something we find second hand, I refuse to buy anything that isn’t solid wood or that I don’t LOVE. I don’t want to have to buy new furniture again in three years. I want what I buy to be something that we will have for a LONG time, and something we both truly want to have in our home. This may not be our forever home, which is why I have some hesitation with things I want to do, but the furniture that we buy will obviously be something that comes with us when we move. Quality is important.

Everyone has a to-do list, right? Whether it’s a mental note or on paper somewhere, there’s a list of things that you need to get done/want to make. Well, I walked around the first level of my home and came up with my “Home To Do List – Level One”. Some of it may be tedious work, some things I wonder why I haven’t done already, and some things I’m still really not sure about. I plan on coming back to this list in six months with the hopes that ALL of it will be completed. Part one, here we go! (In no particular order.)

The above is my pantry. It’s not huge but it’s not too small either. I don’t mind the space I have, but I really want to put wood shelves in here. The wire just isn’t working for me. Especially when it starts to bow from stuff being too heavy. (That plastic shoe holder hanging from the door is seriously awesome. It saves so much space! I put things like spice packets, pop-tarts, apple sauce, extracts, pop corn bags, and many other things in there. Think about all of the things in boxes that are separately packaged that could go in there and save you room on your shelves.)

First of all, I want to paint this kitchen. I love red… but not on my kitchen walls. I have a nice, soft, mellow yellow picked out. Glidden’s Fresh Pineapple to be exact. =]
UPDATE: Click here to see what color we really painted the kitchen.

That (above) is my empty kitchen wall. On the opposite side of this wall are the fridge, oven, and some cabinets. I don’t have a ton of cabinet space in my kitchen, so I would LOVE to get a small-ish hutch to put in here. I would be totally okay with a baker’s rack, except I don’t want a metal one. I would prefer something solid wood. Our make shift sofa table works for now. =)

This is the wall I was talking about that is opposite of my empty kitchen wall. You see that stripe across the top of the wall? The previous home owner’s had a light house themed wall paper border. That was fun to take off.
Obviously we need new appliances too. I’m sure these are about 100 years old. They work for now though! We plan on getting a matching set of black appliances and mounting the microwave above the stove. The microwave definitely takes up way too much space on the counter top.

I don’t HATE the cabinets, they’re just too “builder grade”. I do like the lightness of the wood though. This kitchen isn’t huge so I think dark cabinets would be a no-no. I would either like to stain them a tiny bit darker, like Minwax Colonial Pine. Maybe. I think adding bead board to the cabinet doors and then painting them white and distressing them would be really nice too! I guess I just have to decide what I want to do and have at it!

Oh, and the floors will be replaced sometime too. We will probably do a laminate wood because we have dogs and I don’t want to worry about scratches. Hubs and I love the hand scraped looks. We will probably go with a darker color for the floors, something like this. Possibly. (I obviously have some decisions to make – ha!)

Here’s another version of the above picture, but with my fridge. Isn’t my snow man magnet so cute?? =] To the right of this room is the dining room. (Oh, did you notice that I only have TWO drawers in the kitchen?)

I know, boring. My initial idea with this table was to re-purpose the fabric on the seats and call it a day. Hubs and I have both decided that we want something a little more rustic though. Something natural wood-ish. I don’t mind the burnt orange wall color in here – it’s the same color as the living room to the right, BUT it makes it hard to decorate. In my opinion, anyway. Anytime I have a decorating idea I have to make sure it goes with burnt orange. I feel like my table cloth ALWAYS has to be a neutral brown or possibly green. I would never put a red table cloth in here (although I’d love too) because I think it would clash with the orange too much. I know, I’m rambling. Back to the point of this post. In this room I would like to get a new table, a dining room hutch (I’m thinking something with open shelves across the top) and change the wall color. Maybe something neutral like my updated bathroom wall color.

I would also like to spray paint this horrid brass chandelier. I WILL paint it Oil Rubbed Bronze. (I even already have the spray paint. I don’t know why I haven’t done it yet. Slacker.)

These are the curtain rods in the living room. When I first saw them I thought, “cool, those are pretty rustic”. Then I realized that they are plastic and cheap-y and now I want new ones. =]

(Here is another picture of the wall color that will possibly go in the dining room.)

This is the entry closet. To the left is the front door. I’ve contemplated taking the entry closet door off completely and turning this into a “sort of” mud room but I haven’t decided. I would definitely like to change the wire shelf and hanger rod to a wooden shelf with a wooden (thick) dowel rod. (I want to change out all of the wire shelving in all of the closets in the house.) I would also like to possibly add some shelves in here to help organize. (It obviously needs it.) Oh, and I want to make an actual dog leash holder. The Command Hooks are working great in the mean time!

That seems like a lot to do. That’s not even the whole list! I just realized that I forgot about the closet under the stairs. And then I have to do the whole upstairs! Oh my… let’s take a moment to remember that the half bathroom (to the right of this picture, you can see the door jamb in the bottom right) is done. Sort of. Ha! LIFE!

Let’s enjoy the pretty, short, and fat Christmas tree. It makes me happy.

What’s on your to-do list?

Update: Look at the updates to this list whole list here.